True, though they do contract out some of these tasks to cleared third party defence-focused organisations, who definitely DO pay market rates.

With a focus on graduate recruitment, a culture of esprit de corps, access to awesomly cool geeky tech stuff, and good working conditions, and they tend to hang on to people for a fair bit longer than the government pay grades they are saddled with, would normally imply.

The brain drain does happen eventually.. but that's government, unfortunately.

However, the process is usually long, often expensive, and generally targets a particular software/hardware combination; bump your version number, and there's potentially a fairly significant re-evaluation required.

Huawei could take advantage of this program now, but would either need to front up some dough, or have a sponsor to guide them through it.